Peer Review

The Holy Trinity Triangle Tool

Material Detail page

Reviewed:: Feb 7, 2025 by Mathematics

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Ratings

Overall Rating:

Content Quality:

Effectiveness:

Ease of Use:

Overview:

The Holy Trinity Triangle Tool (HT3) is an online interactive triangle calculator and stop-motion animation tool. It can be useful as a versatile resource for an individual trying to solve a triangle problem, a teacher trying to teach geometry, or an artist trying to make a simple animation. It is designed to be as user-friendly, intuitive, and interactive as possible and provide an engaging creative outlet to students while they learn about geometry and an introduction to CAD software.

Type of Material:

Simulation

Recommended Uses:

In-class demonstration, self-exploration, or creation of media.

Technical Requirements:

Any browser.

Identify Major Learning Goals:

This tool can be used to numerically and visulaly explore the solution of triangles.

Target Student Population:

School or college geometry or media students.

Prerequisite Knowledge or Skills:

Basic geometry.

Content Quality

Rating:
Strengths:: This tool helps a user to explore triangles by specifying any three of angles and sides. After that it calculates the remaining angles and sides plus perimeter and area and provides a visual illustration. A variety of controls allow creation and artistic use of multi layer illustrations. Short explanations are provided for unsuitable input values.
Concerns:: This tool is more technical and visual rather than mathematical. A paragraph or a link to a theoretical part would improve it. No mathematical explanation is provided of how the remaining values of the triangle are calculated.

Potential Effectiveness as a Teaching Tool

Rating:
Strengths:: The material allows repeated numerical exploration and provides visual animation of the results. This tool can be used as a part of in-class demonstration by a geometry teacher. Alternatively, it can be useful as a versatile resource for an individual trying to solve a triangle problem or an artist trying to make a simple animation.
Concerns:: Primary value would seem to be as a media tool rather than a mathematics learning tool. No mathematical explanation is provided of how the remaining values of the triangle are calculated.

Ease of Use for Both Students and Faculty

Rating:
Strengths:: Detailed instructions of how to use the tool are provided – most relate to the visual display rather than the underlying math.
Concerns:: Some of the instructions and their purpose are hard to follow, or require familiarity with other animation tools. The font size also required manual adjustment for the instructions to become legible.

Other Issues and Comments:: None
Creative Commons: